"Hey, Stranger"
Lesson learned: A busy college semester is not conducive to weekly updates when you are easily overwhelmed. S H O C K E R, right? Hi, guys. I've been terrible at getting around to updating and for that I apologize. Nevertheless, here's what I've been up to these past few weeks? Months? Who knows. (And also, there's some new music posted – so check that out, if you feel so inclined). So remember how I got my wisdom teeth removed a few months back? Well on the latter part of healing from that I got sick with one of the two mosquito epidemics that are around the Island right now. I got the lesser of two evils, though, so thank fuck. I got Chikungunya, and that one is fond of fever, joint pains, and a full body rash. It was a look. My Mom, as it happens you know, also got sick with it while she was on the latter part of getting over her flu and completely unrelated foot injury. We ended up having to go to the hospital because my Mom passed out due to her fever spiking in such a way she basically collapsed. If I hadn't been with her at the time, she would have hit the ground – it was seriously the scariest experience of my life. Her head rolled back, her eyes were wide open and completely unfocused, she was speaking gibberish, and would not respond to my pleas for her to to react. Scary. As. Fuck. Stay healthy, guys. After getting checked out and given some medication, etc. etc. I lived up to my go big or go home mentality and injured the almost healed wisdom teeth injuries and half my face swelled up. I could barely speak, it was just great.
ANYWAY. Health-wise, that's been my dilemma. I'm currently battling a sore throat and fuck, I feel like this is the Universe telling me to go fuck myself after spending my whole life barely getting sick AT ALL. So.
With all that crap, I've felt that I've been playing catch up with school work for the longest time. It sucks. The P.E./Health elective I'm taking is a frustrating joke that makes me question how such unorganized people can educate – seriously, there's nothing I hate more than having to sit and listen to someone who is unprepared try to teach. Ugh. My required Science class & accompanying Lab make me feel dumb, since it's been about 5 years since I last took an actual science class.
My English courses, on the other hand, solidify the fact that I chose the right major. My literature class had us prepare these group presentations which I actually loved doing and we just turned in this past week our first Analytical Paper. I won't get into what mine was about in order to avoid boring you all to tears, but it was titled “The Absence of Race in a Racially-Charged Narrative” and while I haven't been graded on it yet, I can honestly say I was pretty proud of it.
The other class, which is my Digital Creative Writing course, has us doing a bunch of other stuff. From Sound Poetry to Visual Poetry, from Netprov to Twitfics and Pinfics, it's all a blast. You can definitely check it all out, if you're interested, in my Digital Creative Archive for the class, titled Orchestrated Collision, which yes, is a nod to WCIW because I'm clever like that.
Anyway, what else do I want to update you guys on? O H. The B I G One. I'm in the process right now, meaning doing all the paper work and shit, for participating in the National Student Exchange Program next semester. If everything works out, which I'm hoping it will, I'll be spending my Spring Semester over at the University of New Orleans. The idea both terrifies me and excites me. You see, seeing as the college I attend right now – which is a great college, mind you that's not what this is about – is about 25 minutes away from where I live, I still live at home. And so, my college experience hasn't been particularly college-y and I guess, I'd like to at least for however brief a time, go out and do this on my own and hopefully, enjoy it, grow from it, and just kill it. It's obviously scary, because I'm very close to both my parents and I tend to spend a lot of time with them, and so it's sad to think I'll be away from them for however long I am, but it's something that I know that unless I force myself to do it, unless I kick my ass into gear R I G H T thisssecond I might never do. So. Here's hoping. I think that might be all for now. In case any of you are wondering, I still don't know when Iyan will be back to posting. Like I've said before, if you follow him on any of his social media accounts, you probably know what's up – and if you don't, like I've also said previously, I don't think it's my place to talk about it, at least not yet. So, send him some loving if you can/want and if you feel so inclined, I'm over on Twitter & Instagram just, you know, documenting the monotony. You know how it goes. Also, drop by our Tumblr anytime guys, the ask box is always open :) Take care & until next time! -SF